In Christian Roeck’s works retinal after-images
caused by strong light sources are superimposed onto photographic images. These
after-images function as an element linking the processes of physio­logical and
mental viewing and remembering. They thus render vi­sible, in its temporal and
spatial extension, visual perception on the way from the retina to the viewed
and remembered image.

Christian Roeck’s images explore the visual perception
process in the in­ter­action between physiological sensual experience and cogni­tive
viewing, that is to say between image-receiving re­tina and im­age-processing
brain. Roeck’s point of departure for his sen­sory-epistemological explorations
are the after-images formed on the re­ti­na as a result of looking into strong
light sources like the sun, after-images that are superimposed onto the viewed
image. On the one hand the after-image makes apparent that the visual
perception pro­cess consists of the distinct acts of seeing and of remem­ber­ing,
for both of which we can further differentiate a physiological and a men­­tal
component. On the other hand the after-image simultaneously acts as a kind of
bracket binding together these different aspects and stages of the viewing
process. For in its nature as superimposition and aftereffect the
after-image establishes in the fluid process of per­ception a tem­poral and
spatial fix point that can serve as a gauge mark. Roeck’s images thus ap­pear
as time clips: immediate sen­­sory perception, our mental and physio­lo­gical
memory of it and the after-image interact and merge in complex rela­tionships.
In the images this is rendered visible through reductions and co­lor shifts.
While after-images are usually automatically filtered out by the brain, in
Roeck’s pictures they take center-stage. The various components of the visual
perception process that are normally experienced as undivided are thus brought
to the surface.

A somewhat different approach to the same phenomenon is at work in
Roeck’s metal pictures, pictures that reflect the surrounding space and the
beholder. According to Roeck, the oxidized spots corres­pond to the
after-images while the silver surface represents a basic ab­straction of the
retina. This is mainly due to the special property of silver to be able to
retain a memory impression of light (which of cour­se makes it the basis of
photo­gra­phy). The optical range attain­ed by silver extends from deep black
to 99% reflection, that is to say from the total absorption of light to its
nearly total reflection. Roeck notes that even the color patterns of the
oxidations are identical to those of retina after-images. His many years of
interest in the phe­no­menon are attested to by his term Retina-LSD: while LSD
in his usage denotes Light-Silver-Dark, the reference to hallucinatory drugs is
not unintentional. In the metal pictures we are therefore once more reminded
that Roeck’s work is reflected in its dual mean­ing: in the sense of an optical
reflection and doubling as well asthe sense of a reflection and re-view of the visual perception process
itself.